Developer gives up on cemetery homes

Rosehill acreage still is for sale

May 03, 2001|By Robert L. Kaiser, Tribune staff reporter.

Oscar Mayer won't be getting new neighbors--at least for now.

A developer has decided against building homes on non-burial land in historic Rosehill Cemetery, the final resting place of Mayer, Montgomery Ward and dozens of other famous Chicagoans, according to those familiar with the deal.

The proposed development was the latest perceived threat to the sanctity of Rosehill, which for years has been tied up in what one lawyer called "apparently eternal" litigation brought by lot owners concerned over how parts of the 350-acre cemetery might be developed.

Rosehill owner Service Corporation International, the global leader in the cemetery business, will continue trying to sell the land, a spokesman said Wednesday. But the cemetery's contentious and tangled legal history figures to cast a shadow on the sales pitch, having discouraged more than a few developers--most recently Concord Development Corp., which had planned to build homes south of the Bryn Mawr Avenue entrance along Western Avenue.

"It was [Concord's] feeling that their proposal might bring more litigation, which would tie up the property indefinitely. And so they decided it just wasn't worth it," Ald. Patrick J. O'Connor (40th) said.

Concord officials could not be reached and did not return phone calls to the company's office in Palatine. But a spokesman for Service Corporation International confirmed without identifying Concord that the company had pulled out of a sales agreement.

"There was a pending deal, but the interested party exercised their right to change their mind," said Greg Bolton, spokesman for the cemetery owner.

In fact, SCI had entered into sales agreements with two potential buyers, both of whom have backed out, Bolton said. Though he would not identify either, sources and records on file at the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency confirm that one was Concord.

The identity of the second developer is unclear, but O'Connor said he thought that company might have been working with Concord in some way.

Records indicate the deal began falling through more than a month ago. In a terse letter written March 30, Suzy Cromer, land-development secretary for Concord, wrote to the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency: "Effective immediately, Concord Development Corporation has elected to terminate the Rosehill Cemetery project."

On March 14, the agency had sent Cromer a letter informing her that a preliminary archeological survey of the site would be required before plans for development could proceed. According to the agency's letter, the proposed development site contains a Middle Woodland period archeological site.

Some materials recovered from the site in the past, such as broken pottery and other evidence of a possible Indian campsite, date back more than 1,000 years, said Mark Esarey, chief archeologist for the agency.

Besides such finds, parts of the cemetery also contain fill--mostly construction debris--the potential environmental hazards of which were the focus of a convoluted lawsuit filed in 1994 that produced a stack of court documents more than 2 feet tall.

In the suit, SCI, which was having trouble selling cemetery land, said that former cemetery owner Potter Palmer IV had failed to disclose that hazardous waste was buried at the cemetery when he sold it to SCI in 1991. Citing Illinois Environmental Protection Agency reports, Palmer's attorneys argued that the fill posed no hazard and that it had not been a secret.

The question of what lies beneath the proposed development site notwithstanding, O'Connor said the issue of most concern to Concord was one of legal constraint.

Though Rosehill is zoned for single-family residential development, a covenant that grew out of a 1986 chancery suit involving Palmer restricted parts of Rosehill for use as a church, synagogue, school, health-care facility or nursing home.